Research relevant photographers, graphic designers and magazine creators

By Michael Siscar

Linda McCartney 1941- 1995

• Linda McCartney was an American musician, photographer and civil rights activist. She was the wife of the Beatles member Paul McCartney. During her time, she did several photographs for the Rolling Stone magazine and she also took pictures of known celebrities such as Johnny Depp and fashion icon Kate Moss in 1995.

From further research, I looked at some of her work like this warm, vibrant photo of John Lennon standing in front of a pink background. I like the way it shines on Lennon as she used a colour that creates a contrast between the background and the singer. She could have done this to convey the mood of the atmosphere.

In this famous photo of the Beatles walking into the streets of Abbey Road, the photographer decided to use this composition of them walking across. This gives me an idea of applying action into one photograph. It creates a sense of curiosity with the viewer on what they’re doing, why, when etc.

Black and white photos look really effective as it makes these pictures look old fashioned and making the chosen model to look unique.

Ernst Haas 1921-1986• Ernst Haas was an Austrian-born photojournalist and a

pioneering colour photographer. During his 40-year career, he had bridged the gap between photojournalism and the use of photography used as a medium for expression and creativity. In addition to his prolific coverage of events around the globe after World War 2, he was the one who specialised in colour photography.

As colour wasn't available, Haas made the picture very colourful in order to restore its original colours. I looked at other examples of his work . I noticed that he saturated these pictures to achieve that realistic look.

This picture has that transparent effect on this woman’s face including the headscarf which has only one tone. It looks dominated with natural effects to create this unusual, effective pattern.

In my opinion, I find this photographer interesting as he uses colourful techniques to create photos into artistic work.

David Carson• David Carson (born in September 8th 1954) is an

American graphic artist, art director and a surfer. Carson is best known for his unique magazine covers and designs that includes typography and layout. he defines his work as a "grunge typography" era.

Looking at his work with magazine covers, He uses a range of texts in different sizes. I like the effect he uses in his typographic words as it looks very expressive and bold. The layout is very clever when he uses the filler “Blah” to make it look like the person featured on it is actually saying this repetitive dialogue. The layout looks layered with each other in different

This cover of RayGun is even more impressive; this time, the text are embedded on the glassy texture with the singer featured but faded behind the glass. The names of singers are layered on top of each other in a particular order: some of the names were made bigger to convey the exclusiveness of them as well as some small text to make sure that the front cover can be clear enough to view the main image.

I was very intrigued with Carson’s font, it looks well illustrated, I like the mixture of thick and thin font in each letter. He doesn’t make it too perfect which reveals his artistic side. I like this graphic artist as he uses his own elements to create a masterpiece.

Milton Glaser• Milton Glaser (born in June 26 1926) is an American graphic designer

who made the famous I love N.Y. sign. He also made the DC bullet logo that was used from 1977 to 2005. he was also the founder of the New York magazine. His work looks so symbolize and memorable to people. I think that this looks really relevant especially for a music magazine. It has full of energetic colours to express an opinion or feeling.

This well known New York is very easy to recognize especially to those who buy a product with their brand logo. The heart icon stands out as the colour red is very bright to show his affection towards a big city attraction.

He did several works for famous people such as this “Hope” poster of Obama. He uses two colours to signify him: his confidence and to show his seriousness. This helps reinforce the important message for people.

I like the way Glaser uses an array of colours to create this psychedelic feeling into this example. I like the way the font looks, it reminds of the 70s from the cover of vinyl records.

Krissi Murison Krissi Murison was a former NME editor as well as a music journalist. She started journalism when she was editing the music pages for the student newspaper Epigram. She started working for NME as a staff writer but by 2009, she became the first female editor of NME magazine. By 2nd April 2012, she left NME in order to join the Sunday Times newspaper as Features Editor.

In this example of her work, she uses a range of 10 different fonts to make the magazine cover look glossy especially for the female audience. I like the way she uses the block colour blue is used; she might have done this to attract the male audience as well to make the magazine not too limited to only just one gender

She goes back with the main colour:red. She does this in order to make it mix well to the main image. The editor uses this colour to symbolize the rebellious energy that this singer has but also to readers. This gives me an idea on choosing particular colour palette.

Tony Gervino Tony Gervino is the editor-in chief of Billboard magazine. He specializes in editing and developing feature reporting, covers and special content for the magazine and its website.His layout is similar to Murison as he arranged the contents of the front cover to a particular order: big news are put in the middle of the cover and that smaller news is placed on one of the sides.

I like the effects he used to make Ed Sheeran look stunning to the female reader. He uses a special lighting to make him look illuminated in the blueish background. The layout looks very straight forward to read as they have been only placed on the top and bottom part of the cover. The font of the text looks the same; they don’t have fancy fonts and this makes their magazine coherent to their readers.

The editor uses a pink background to make it collide with the singer’s floral themed dress. He uses a total of 7 different fonts to make this front cover idyllic and brand new for the reader to read.